VI
"Up on your feet, every man of you! Test your oxygen tanks—quickly!" Her voice was tense with suppressed emotion.
Something in her tone seemed to cut a path through the heat-ridden lethargy of their minds, for the men staggered to their feet, hands fumbling for the testing buttons.
Mark found his, and his eyes darted to the tiny dial inside his helmet. The pointer swung and registeredone hour. Frantically he pressed the button again; once more the pointer inexorably indicated the same period of time.
"One hour!" he breathed, stunned. That was barely a third of the time it would take to return to the Base! Out of the dancing mirage before him the alabaster face of Aladdian seemed to float and smile. With infinite, pain-laden regret Mark realized that unless a miracle happened he would never see her again, and now for the first time it dawned on him how much he wanted to.
Around him the men were milling in confusion, panic-stricken. Their few hours' stay at the Base had been like a brief taste of heaven, and life had become precious once more.
"All of us can't get back," the Commander was saying. "But there's enough oxygen among us to permit seven, at most eight, to do so. I'm willing to draw lots with the rest of you. But decide quickly! Every instant is precious!"
"No!" a man screamed hysterically, near the breaking point. "I'd rather take my chances...." His voice ended in a hoarse sob.
Then a strange thing happened. Ernest Carston, white-faced and unsteady, stepped forward.
"You can take my supply, Commander Cynthia," he offered. "You need not draw lots; let the men do that."
She waved him aside and shook her head, but her eyes softened gratefully. She glanced at the teletimer at her wrist. "I will give you men just thirty seconds to make your decision; otherwise I will be forced to make it."
But from the group came no decision, only sullen argument and frantic babbling. Some of them measured the distance between them and the girl, eying hungrily the atom-blast guns at either side of her wrist.
"What a woman!" Carston murmured to himself, lost in admiration. But Mark heard him.
"Yes, she is magnificent," he agreed in a dry croak. "A pity all that courage and...." He checked himself and fell dully silent again.
It was then that Mark saw something or thought he did, far away, shimmering through the dancing heat. He wiped the sparkling dust from his visiplate and strained his eyes desperately, praying that it was not a mirage. He clutched at Carston and pointed.
"The hills ... are those the hills?Our hills?"
Carston nodded dumbly. At last he managed to croak, "Yes, but the entrance is miles away ... at the other end."
"But there may be a chance! Remember Aladdian, the corridors—a honeycomb of caverns? Commander!" Mark turned up his radio-phone, his voice drowning out the babble of the men. "How far is that range of hills, Commander?"
She followed his pointing arm. "A little less than an hour, at its closest point."
"And the system of caverns—how far does it extend? Aren't those hills practically honeycombed their entire length? We might find—"
"Wait!" The word came explosively, as her mind darted into the past, down the corridor of years. "Yes, I remember ... some of the caverns did lead out to this side, and father sealed them to make the Base airtight...." She gazed at the distant hills as if trying to recapture a forgotten scene. And a bulky shape hurtled forward, clawing for the weapons at her waist.
But Carston had been watching. He thrust out a metal-shod foot and the convict went sprawling ludicrously into the swirling white dust.
"Thank you, again!" the Commander said in a whisper. "This trip has been a revelation—in so many ways." Her face was as white as the powdery soil underfoot, and she was near collapse; but from some unknown source she still drew from enough strength reserve to maintain her authority. Hands on her atom-blast guns, she faced the men.
"Into line as before. We've got to make the hills in less than one hour. Leave the sleds. It's the hills or your lives!"
The effect was miraculous. Suddenly they were docile, grasping at the slender hope she offered them and content to have her bear the burden. Quickly they fell into line, with Vulc leading the way again. The men needed no urging; the knowledge that they only had one more hour of oxygen was enough.
If their trek up to now had been a nightmare, this latter stage surpassed even the most secret refinements of a Martian torture-chamber. In an agony of slowness the minutes lengthened and seemed to stand still. The low range of hills seemed to dance mockingly and recede into the distance beyond the horizon's endless rim. In addition now to the heat in their brains and the glare in their eyes, their lungs were tortured as they regulated the oxygen intake-valves to the barest minimum.
After an eternity in which even memory seemed to have fled, they were walking on rock and the heat began imperceptibly to abate. Directly before them, the hills rose out of the torturing blaze. Cries that were little more than miserable croakings echoed through the radio-phones as the men broke ranks; they staggered on, holding to each other for support.
Mark looked around for the Commander, and saw her clutching at Carston's shoulder for support, while his arm was about her waist, half-holding her up. The girl disengaged herself and by sheer will-power drove toward the base of the low-lying cliffs before them.
"Wait!" she ordered.
She stopped, and the men halted behind her, weaving on their feet. She stared around us as if desperately trying to recall something deeply imbedded in the matrix of the past; then she veered to the right, waving for Vulc and the men to follow.
Mark tested his oxygen tank and glanced at the dial again. It read "ten minutes." It was a race with time which now, perversely, seemed to be rushing by on flying feet.
Thirty yards further, the cliffs curved in sharply. Rounding it, the Commander gave a glad cry. In the center was a gigantic metal door, hermetically sealing what had once been the entrance to a cave. The men staggered forward, some of them clawing feebly at the barrier. Others sank wordlessly to the rocky ground. They weren't even sure that beyond that metal wall they would find life-giving air.
The Commander had drawn both atom-pistols, and stood there surveying the barrier as if paralyzed.
"What are you waiting for?" Mark pressed forward. "In minutes, the men will be dying! Blast an opening!"
For the very first time, Mark saw her hesitant, indecisive, as if unable to think. "But the air ..." she managed to gasp. "It will escape from the caves, clear back to the Base! All those men there ... and father ... their lives are more important than ours!"
In those brief seconds Mark admired her. Despite the deadly threat to the Earth she embodied, he admired her for her humanity and loyalty to the men at the Base. But there was no time to lose. He made her decision superfluous.
"We've got to chance it!" With a swift, darting movement he wrested an atom-blast gun from her hand and discharged it steadily at the metal door, at a point just above the ground. A second later she was helping him with the other gun. Instantly the metal turned fiery red, then white, and finally a circular section fell outward with a hissing rush of air.
"Dive in, men!" With the dregs of a strength he didn't know he still possessed, Mark grasped the men and pushed them toward the aperture, helped shove them through. "Throw your helmets back!" he shouted. "In you go," he told the Commander, and despite her protests he lifted her off her feet, almost handing her through the blasted entrance.
Only Vulc and Mark were left. As the Earthman crawled through, he motioned for Vulc to follow. The metallic being dropped to all fours and pushed in his arms, his head, his massive shoulders. His sides scraped the still hot edges of the aperture. And there he stuck. The men inside grasped his arms and pulled, but in vain. Vulc gazed ludicrously from side to side and heaved prodigiously, but in vain. The Vulcanian seemed molded to the hole.
"Wait! Tell him not to struggle, not to move!" Mark was exultant as he turned to the girl. "The air's no longer rushing away; if he'll only remain there until we can get back with equipment to seal that hole, the danger's over!"
Vulc seemed to be pondering; his limbs sprawled like a distorted swastika, and on his usually blank, fluid face was something like surprise. In the dim recesses of his alien mind he could find no parallel to this.
The Commander spoke to him slowly, with desperate emphasis; reaching into a pocket of her suit, she brought out another package of powdered metal which Vulc promptly stuffed into his mouth. "He understands," she said at last. "But I'll leave one of you here with him, to be certain he does."
For a while they rested, lying prone, helmets thrown back, luxuriating in the comparative coolness and the draughts of pure air. All were thirsty, their throats parched and aching. But the nightmare was over. Presently the Commander rose to her feet and gave the order to march. She was almost her usual self again, detached, impersonal. But she was white to the lips and her eyes were electric as she said:
"Luhor will pay for this!"
She barely breathed it, but Mark heard her. And he knew what she meant. It was Luhor who had prepared the units of oxygen for the suits.
VII
Under the dim illumination maintained even as far as these outlying caves, the group went grimly on. Their passage through the tortuous corridors was dotted by discarded vacuum suits. But no echoes drifted back to them from the activity of the Base.
Twice they lost their way, ending up against blank rock walls and retracing their steps. But at last the inter-connecting tunnel chain became familiar to the Commander.
"She blames Luhor for the oxygen business!" Mark murmured to Carston walking beside him.
"Should!" Carston exclaimed laconically, grimly. "Aladdian warned us against Luhor, remember? There'll be hell to pay when we get back! Any monkey-wrench thrown into the machinery of their plans, helps the Earth. I hope...."
He broke off, staring moodily ahead.
"She's far more human than you think," Mark Denning said softly.
"Yes, I noticed that today." Carston's voice sounded glad. "It's only the Spartan training she learned while cruising the spacelanes with her piratical father that keeps her up—that, and the old man's insane will, driving her on through a sense of loyalty to him."
They were so near to the Base now that Mark expected momentarily to hear the clang of metal in the factories, the voices of workmen. His heart quickened at the thought of seeing Aladdian, and he forgot his weariness in embroidering upon that thought.
But the ominous stillness remained unbroken.
They entered the final corridor leading to the vast central chamber. The Commander ran forward, with the anxious men close behind her. They entered the grotto. The subterranean Base extended into the distance before their startled, unbelieving eyes.
"What—" Cynthia began bewilderedly.
It was a dead city, soundless and inert. Under the distant cavern roof it had the air of a ghost town drained of all life.
Mark's heart leaped into his mouth. "Aladdian!" he cried involuntarily, and his hands clenched in an agony of anxiety of helpless rage.
Commander Cynthia was already running toward the palace, a deathly fear mirrored in her eyes.
The men had stopped uncertainly, too weary and exhausted to understand. Then driven by a single thought, they staggered off to their building in search of water and food.
Scarcely had the echoes of Mark's cry stopped reverberating, when from the shadows of a transverse corridor emerged the elfin figure of the Venusian.
Aladdian gazed at Mark as if he had returned from the dead. She closed her eyes, swayed a little. Mark caught her in his arms. He too was silent. No words would serve.
"To the palace!" she finally breathed, gently disengaging herself. Followed by Carston, they hurried to the imposing building where old George Marnik reigned. Aladdian led them swiftly through the panelled outer hall, through the magnificent salon where the loot from many years was a fabulous welter of wealth. Mark had no eyes for it now. They did not stop until they reached the inner chambers and finally came to George Marnik's room, where no one but Cynthia was ever permitted.
Lying grotesquely twisted on the priceless Martian tapestry that covered the bed, the ancient pirate was dead. Cynthia Marnik was kneeling beside him, weeping softly. There was no doubt as to the manner of his death. The pencil-thin opening through his temple could only have been done by an atom-blast.
"Luhor," Aladdian said, indicating the wound with a gesture.
They withdrew, leaving Cynthia alone with her grief. The two men followed the Venusian girl to the immense palace dining-room. With her own hands she served them food and drink, asking no questions, uttering no words until their vast hunger and thirst were appeased. Then she sat down.
"And so," she began without preamble, "the unpredictable has entered." At their rush of questions she held up a hand. "Let me explain," she begged. "I can do it briefly if you are silent. After you left, Luhor ordered every man here to go aboard the Spacer. He blasted down two or three who refused; you will find them in the air-lock. Previous to that, I heard him arguing with George Marnik. He atom-blasted Marnik from behind. I know, because I deliberately contacted his mind, although the effort nearly drove me mad; it is not easy for us to tune to an alien intellect, but Luhor being partly Venusian helped."
"The miracle is that he didn't take you with him," Carston ventured. "You were too valuable to leave behind!"
"When we came here yesterday," she said simply, "I studied the plans of these caverns. When I learned what was in Luhor's mind, I hid in a maze of abandoned corridors. They searched for me a while, but since he plans to return, he gave up the search for the present. He had no time to waste! The Patrol has been to the Prison Swamp; failing to find either of you, and learning of my disappearance,Earth has mobilized its fleet!"
"How—how do you know this?" Both men leaned tensely forward.
"Through the ethero-magnum George Marnik has in his laboratory here—the most powerful receiving and transmission instrument I've ever seen, greater even than the ethero-magnum we have on Venus!"
"Sothat'show he kept always a step ahead of the Patrol," Carston mused. "The scientists he used to kidnap from space-liners—he must have forced them to perfect scientific inventions here!"
"Yes," the Venusian girl nodded, "but I haven't told you the most important part, Luhor's plan. If he succeeds, there will be no peace. He has taken the men to the asteroid where Marnik's new fleet of space vessels are to be assembled. But worse than that—they are also to fit gigantic rockets to the asteroid itself! It is very dense, and greatly pitted, which simplifies things. With the rockets of this new metal he can guide the asteroid's course! It will be the terror of space, literally invulnerable, with banks of immense electro-cannon and atom-blasts, and cradling a swarm of the new Spacers!"
Ernest Carston could only hold his head in his hands. Earth's greatest enemy had died in Marnik, but a greater, more ruthless one had arisen in Luhor!
"Go on, Aladdian, please," Mark's tones were reassuring.
"Luhor does not suspect that I contacted his mind. He believes all of you have died in the wastes—I got that from his mind, too. Since he will return, because Vulcan's to be the seat of his empire, and he wants me, we have time to plan how we are going to receive him. He's persuaded that the only living being on Vulcan now is a defenseless girl." She smiled enigmatically.
"But that asteroid! That hellish threat to Earth!" Carston was beside himself.
"And to Venus, and Mars," Aladdian reminded him gently. "It will take months for those rockets to be installed, Earthman. He will be here long before that, I am certain of it—as only a woman can be certain." She raised her eyes and gazed at the doorway.
Framed at the entrance to the dining-room, Cynthia Marnik stood looking somberly and dry-eyed. Aladdian rose swiftly and went over to her.
"My dear ..." the Venusian said softly, a world of compassion in her voice. Cynthia smiled wanly and took the tumbler of water that Carston extended to her. She drank dazedly and then sat down with the inexpressible weariness of one whose world has come tumbling down about her head. Aladdian darted to the kitchen and upon returning made the Earth girl drink a cup of concentrate, then led her away, to her bedroom. "You must sleep," Aladdian was saying softly, monotonously, with a hypnotic cadence in her voice.
"I wonder if it will be safe to arm the men?" Carston questioned thoughtfully, his mind grappling with the problem.
"That's a chance we'll have to take," Mark Denning replied. "A few among them are not really hardened criminals, but arepoliticals, as you know. I think they will all fight for us, provided we can offer them freedom when, and if, we win."
"I can make them no promises not sanctioned by the Earth Council," Carston said stiffly. "Remember, their lives are forfeit!"
"And so will ours be, if you don't snap out of that single-track rut in which you've grooved your brain!" Mark exclaimed acidly. "Council or no Council, the Earth, Venus, Mars and the colonies must be saved! This is no time to quibble about ethics. A hell of a lot will be left of your Council if we don't stop Luhor!"
"You startle me sometimes, Mark Denning. You do not sound as a true servant of the Earth State!"
"Because to you," Mark said slowly, "the State is the few decrepit members calling themselves the Council, and the top-heavy Government of Earth. But to me, the 'State' are the millions and billions of human beings whose destinies are ruled by a self-appointed few, and who are now facing even a worse slavery if we don't succeed in being what Aladdian calls 'the unpredictable!'"
Carston's face flushed with anger. He drew himself to his full height as he said, "I represent the Government of Earth, which rules the Planets—and I am your superior officer!"
"You're wrong!" Mark Denning countered, rising too. "I'm a free agent as of this moment, and recognize no superior. I'll not be hamstrung by rules and regulations which can't serve us now, Carston!"
"No need to quarrel," Aladdian spoke placidly from the doorway where, unnoticed, she had been listening. "Because only I and Cynthia can make terms with Earth, if we survive."
"You and Commander Cynthia?" Carston exclaimed. "Both of your lives have been forfeit. I doubt if the Council will be willing to listen to any terms coming fromyou."
Mark Denning's face was stained by a dull flush, and he took a step forward; but Aladdian laid her hand lightly on his arm and stopped him.
"The Colonel belongs to the old order," she said very softly, "it is difficult for him to adjust himself to a changing universe. But this time it is beyond his control."
"Why?" Carston uttered the word grimly.
"Because through the ethero-magnum I have already warned Venus and Mars. My planet is being mobilized. Mars will soon take the necessary steps. But the most important reason of all, is that Earth has no means of landing a fleet on Vulcan, does not know the location of Luhor's asteroid, anddoes not even suspect the existence of the new allotropic metal."
Carston looked baffled as the Venusian girl spoke, then turned to Mark Denning with the expression of a man who for once felt hopelessly lost.
"I can promise the men who aid us a fortune to each," Aladdian continued, "and the leisure to spend it—on Venus. As for the Earth," she said thoughtfully—"only Commander Cynthia and I know the formula for the new metal, and the location of the asteroid!"
"I will talk to the men!" Mark said with a finality that left no doubt. "Let them rest for a few hours, then I'll see to it that they're on our side. I know how to rouse them. Wait until they learn that Luhor short-changed them on oxygen! How much backing can you expect from Venus, Aladdian?"
"To the last man," she said quietly. "They have already seen me through the ethero-magnum, and heard my story. I intercepted the Tri-Planetary Beam as the Earth broadcast, and transmitted our beam along their channel. By the time Earth's Government set out their interceptor to neutralize my beam, it was already too late; the three planets are seething!"
"And Luhor? Wouldn't he have picked up your beam on the Spacer and heard you?"
Aladdian shrugged. "He knows I'm here. The confusion created by my broadcast only served to aid his plans for the moment. He has nothing to fear, as far as he knows. A war between the planets would only make his conquest simpler."
"And knowing that," Carston spoke bitterly, "you still broadcast your story and let your image be seen! Do you suppose Venus will ever be content now with anything short of war?"
"Yes, I do. We are intelligent beings, not Martian atavisms, nor do we have your Earth's insane will toPower. We only want peace and with it freedom. But the game is ruthless, Carston, the universe is the stake!" Aladdian turned to leave.
"Mark," she said gently from the doorway, "Cynthia can show you where the arsenal is located; you'll find every imaginable weapon. Also, you had better study the combination that opens the air-locks, and the synchronized degravitators. I suspect that Luhor will be back here soon—very soon."
Suddenly the terrific reaction of that day hit Mark with sickening impact. He was hardly able to rise to his feet. Carston was slumped over the table; Mark went over and shook him gently, and somehow aided the older man to his feet. Together they went into the fabulously furnished salon, and unable to go any further, threw themselves on couches piled with priceless rugs and embroidered scarves from the various planets. Carston instantly was asleep.
Despite his utter weariness, Mark slept fitfully, awakening and dropping back to sleep as the hours passed in their eternal caravan. Something clamored at the back of his brain, something he had forgotten because of the major crisis they'd had to confront on their return to the Base.
And suddenly he sat upright. The overhead lights had automatically dimmed, no one was stirring. With a shock, Mark had remembered Vulc and the man they had left to watch him! He leaped to his feet, aching in every bone, and ran to the building where the men were quartered.
"If Vulc gets tired of waiting and wriggles through that hole!..." He tried not to think of the rest.
He burst into the building and roused the men. "Up, on your feet, there's no time to waste!" His terrible urgency instilled them with a nameless fear, prodding them as nothing else would have done.
"Your lives are at stake," he told them bluntly, and reminded them of Vulc. "At any moment he might decide he's waited long enough. Who among you knows how to repair that breach?"
Three of the men came forward. "All right," Mark told them, "hurry to the shops and get what instruments and materials you need—but hurry!"
The men could not return to sleep now, knowing that at any moment the Base's life-giving air might go rushing away. This emergency, following so close upon the other hardships of the day, seemed too much. Mark saw that they were all very near the breaking point. Now was the psychological moment to speak to them, and by giving them the entire picture, lift them above the present crisis as well as inspire them with hope for the future.
Calmly he told of Luhor's treachery in giving them a short oxygen supply, with the intention of murdering them all. Deliberately, with calculated phrases, he aroused their hatred and thirst for revenge.
Mark paused, letting it sink in, giving time for their dark passions to reach a peak. Then he told of Luhor's asteroid, and the threat to the planets. He dangled before their eyes the promise of untold wealth, and freedom on Venus for the rest of their lives. To give his promises authority and weight, he made no bones about the fact that he was a high operative of the Tri-Planetary Bureau of Prisons—but he climaxed it with the guarantee of a blanket pardon from the Earth Council itself.
"You will see and hear the Council on the ethero-magnum, but we shall be making the terms," Mark Denning said forcefully. "There's no trick in this, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose! In the Swamp, your lives were forfeit; they were forfeit here on Vulcan too. I promise you wealth on Venus, and the freedom you'll never have any other way! Who's with me?"
He need not have asked, for the clamor that answered him was affirmative and unanimous. Gone for the moment was their fatigue, as they embroidered upon the possibilities of the days to come.
Not until the trio returned from repairing the breach, bringing Vulc with them, did the men return to their sleep with the first and only hope they had had in years. Only Mark Denning realized the trials to come. These few men had been won over easily. Not so easy would be the negotiated terms with Earth. The Earth Government had won its dominance over the System the hard way, only after a bitter ten-years' inter-planetary war, and it would not easily relinquish its position.
VIII
The days that followed were eternities to the little group left stranded on Vulcan Base. Nerves were taut and tempers were short. Every man there, as well as the two women, realized that their very lives as well as the fate of the System depended on the day of Luhor's return from the asteroid.
Mark had aroused the men too well. They were impatient and restless. They didn't want their freedom handed to them on a silver platter, they wanted to fight for it. Aladdian had said Luhor would be back soon—very soon. Mark questioned her about it.
"Even with that fast Spacer," Aladdian replied, "it will take him several days to get out to that asteroid and back again. Cynthia tells me her father sent a crew of men there a month ago, to assemble the new Spacers. Luhor will undoubtedly win them all to his side, and bring half of them back to continue the work here. Cynthia says—"
"Cynthia seems to have confided a lot in you!" Mark exclaimed with a sudden, unexplainable suspicion.
Aladdian smiled wearily, and slowly shook her head. "You are demoted back to the lower order, Mark Denning," she said with a hint of the same mockery Mark had known in the Swamp. "Cynthia Marnik needs our help now. She only carried out her father's orders, but now that the dynasty is crumbling about her ears, she's bewildered and a little frightened. Something else has happened to her too, for the first time in her life."
"What's that?"
"Never mind," Aladdian said enigmatically. "Ernest Carston knows. It will turn out all right. Meanwhile you had better put the men here to work, it will help pass the time. Goodbye ... Mark." Like an azure-winged elf she hurried back to the laboratory where she spent most of her time.
That was the first instance Mark could remember when Aladdian had called him by his first name, and he liked it.
He called the men together and assigned them to posts at the furnaces, where they continued to turn out the metal that would be fashioned into the super rocket-tubes. Earth was massing its fleet and Venus was mobilizing. Mark realized that if a truce could not be called, they would need every one of the outlaw Spacers on the asteroid, and others as well. He took a few of the men with him to the arsenal, where they began to get every available weapon in readiness for the Tri-Planetary showdown that was sure to come.
"Tell the men to stop work," Aladdian said to Mark two days later, "then bring them to the laboratory. They have as much right as we to know what is happening. I have been working on the ethero-magnum sender, and I shall try to contact both Venus and Earth."
They gathered in the magnificent laboratory George Marnik had erected. Here, various machines were arranged in preponderant array, but all were dwarfed by the imposing ethero-magnum in the center of the room. Hidden atomomotors hummed a smooth and powerful threnody. The control panel, as tall as Aladdian herself, connected to huge coils of radical design which themselves led to the televise, a huge sensitized sheet of metal reaching clear up to the ceiling.
Carston, an Earth patriot to the end, watched these activities with misgivings. But he was silent, curiously so, and Mark wondered at it.
Mark was soon to know the reason for Carston's silence, and to realize that the Earth official did not give up so easily....
"I want you all to stand back against the walls," Aladdian said, "out of range of the televise. Luhor may pick this up, and he must not know there is anyone here but me."
She operated the dials quickly, surely, with tendril-like fingers. A faint, far away voice was heard droning monotonously. "Earth is sending to Venus now," Aladdian said, never once removing her gaze from the dancing dials before her. "If I can intercept the Earth beam, I can get my message to Venus through that channel, by drowning them out. I did it once before."
The sound of the voice increased, and words became distinguishable. They were haranguing, dictatorial—undoubtedly one of the Earth Council speaking to Venus. At the same time the huge metallic sheet above Aladdian's head took on a silvery glow, and a wavering scene began to appear. The scene was a crowded city square, with thousands of faces upturned to a televise screen atop one of the buildings.
"That is N'Vaarl, Capitol City of Venus," Aladdian murmured. "They are listening to the Earth broadcast. Now I will let them see me." Automatically her hand reached out, and grasped a lever which she threw downward. The atomomotors shrieked as they absorbed the increased power, and soon the sound rose above the audible. At the same time the Earth voice was drowned out, and the scene at N'Vaarl became very clear to the watchers in the room.
On the huge public televise screen at N'Vaarl, the image of Aladdian, Princess of Venus and daughter of Bedrim the Liberator, became visible. The crowd did not cheer, but awaited her message, knowing that at any moment the Earth would throw off the beam when it realized what was happening.
"Greetings, my people!" Aladdian spoke quickly. "As I told you before, Earth is mobilizing its fleet and I know that you are preparing for any contingency. That is well, but I entreat you not to act in any manner until you have heard further from me! There is a greater danger than that of Earth! I am safe and well, I cannot come to you now, but soon—"
In that moment the Earth beam ceased, and the scene on the televise blanked out. Aladdian turned with a satisfied smile to Mark and Cynthia and the others. "It is enough that they saw me. My people will not act now without word from me. I hope I shall never have to give that word."
"Aladdian," Mark spoke worriedly, "isn't it a risk for you to broadcast at all? The Earth Government doesn't know your present whereabouts, but if they were to send out tracer beams and learn you were operating from Vulcan ... well, it's true that no Patrol ship is equipped to land on Vulcan, but they could bottle us up here—"
Ernest Carston, who had been silent but eternally watchful, became suddenly tense at Mark's words.
"Theyhavesent out tracer beams," Aladdian replied, "but with this instrument I can neutralize them all." Fondly she touched the ethero-magnum by her side. "Anyway, the immediate danger is not from Earth, but from Luhor. Let us not forget that! And I must warn Earth, must make them understand."
She turned to the dialed panel again, and even as her fingers made swift connections, she continued to speak. "It may not be easy to establish a direct channel from here to Earth, but I think I have completed a new trans-telector beam on which George Marnik was working. It should do away with the magnetic disturbance caused by our close proximity to the sun. We shall see."
Again the atomomotors whined and ascended the scale. This time, there was a new exultant note. Minutes passed, then the overhead screen began to take on a hazy, shifting blur. Aladdian's fingers moved unerringly on the dials. The blur came suddenly, sharply into focus.
Carston, standing against the far wall next to Mark Denning, leaned tensely forward, his eyes aglow. The scene on the televise was the Earth Council. Carston almost leaped forward in his excitement, but Mark gripped his arm tightly.
Aladdian was speaking to the Council. In slow, matter-of-fact tones she told of George Marnik, of the new metal, of Luhor and Luhor's plans. She told of the asteroid and the fleet being assembled there, without revealing the asteroid's position. She described the properties of the new metal but was careful not to hint of its source.
"I seek to warn you," Aladdian's voice came fervent and clear. "You are plunging into disaster. It is not my people I think of now, but the Tri-Planet Federation! If you continue to mobilize your fleet I am not sure I can control the Irreconcilables among my people—I certainly cannot control Dar Vaajo of Mars, who is headstrong beyond reason. It will mean an hecatomb in space, with Luhor holding his asteroid in readiness for the final blow!"
"This Luhor and the formidable asteroid of which you speak," came the cold, sneering voice of the Earth Coordinator. "Tell us more of them. Give us the location of the asteroid."
Aladdian hesitated for an instant. "No. That I cannot do."
"You cannot, because no such asteroid and no such metal exists! You would try to frighten us with this story of a demon asteroid and a super space fleet! It would not be that you seek to gain time for your people to rally to you, now that they know you have escaped the Prison Swamp? Or perhaps you need time in which to coordinate your resources with those of Dar Vaajo of Mars! Let us advise you, Aladdian, that within a week the main body of our fleet will be at Venus, and it will not go well with your Irreconcilables. We shall know how to handle them this time, we shall not be so lenient as before! Perhaps, in order to spare them, you will wish to give yourself up to us, daughter of Bedrim!"
Aladdian's slender body grew taut as though struck by a whip lash. With a single sweep of the control lever she cut off the beam. Dazedly she crossed the room, oblivious to the murmurs of the others; her usually alabaster face was now chalk white beneath her curling blue-black hair, her lips were pressed tight but they trembled nevertheless.
At the laboratory door Mark caught her arm, walked beside her. "Aladdian," he choked. "I—"
She became aware of him then, smiled up at him through her bitterness.
"Aladdian, I am—I just wanted to say—I'm sorry I'm an Earthman!"
She stopped suddenly, faced him, took one of his hands in both of hers. "No, Mark! Do not say that, do not ever say it. For you are more than that ... much more...."
IX
It was night, and the overhead lights in the corridors were dimmed. Ernest Carston tossed restlessly in his bed. He could not sleep, he had been unable to sleep since seeing and hearing the Earth Council on the ethero-magnum.
Carston arose, and dressed quickly. Silently he crossed the room to the outer door, and stepped out into the corridor. He paced slowly, aimlessly, his brow knit in deep thought. Finally he made a decision, and turned his footsteps in the direction of the palace and the laboratory. He was still an Earth official; he had known all the time that he would have to take matters here into his own hands.
Before he reached the corridor leading to the laboratory, however, he heard the soft shuffle of footsteps. Carston leaped back into the shadows just as a lone figure emerged from one of the transverse corridors. It passed very close to him, and he saw that it was Cynthia Marnik; her face seemed very white, and her steps were hurried.
Carston's heart quickened a pace, as he followed her at a safe distance, keeping to the shadows. She continued along the main corridor, past the men's quarters and past the furnaces. With a shock, Carston realized she was heading for the outer air-lock.
He reached there in time to see the huge door slide open, then Cynthia stepped through, and the door closed. Carston waited, giving her time to leave the tunnel, before he followed. Finally he entered the tunnel himself, having long since learned how to operate the mechanism of these doors. Cynthia was gone; the outer doors were closed.
Carston hurried down the long tunnel. The magnetic degravitizing coils along each side were silent now, would remain so until the Spacer's return. Carston reached the racks of vacuum suits near the outer door, quickly donned one and was soon outside the Base.
Against the sun-swept horizon, a hundred yards away, he could easily discern Cynthia's metal-encased figure. She kept close to the shadows at the foot of the low lying cliffs. Not once did she look back. A quarter of a mile further, she turned sharply, entered a narrow, steep-walled canyon.
Puzzled, Carston hurried forward. He reached the canyon and entered it, realizing that this must be one of the few places on Vulcan's surface where there was anything simulating night; it wasn't really dark, but sort of a twilight gloom between the rock cliffs sheering upward.
And he saw Cynthia. She hadn't gone far. Her vacuum-suited figure stood very still, and she seemed to be staring up at the immensity of space. Carston crept closer, came very near indeed, until he could see the profiled whiteness of her face beneath the helmet.
Carston stared too, following her gaze. At first he didn't see a thing. Then, high on the horizon, out of the sun's glare, right between the canyon walls ... he caught the bright blue glint of a star. He suddenly realized what it was, and with a sharp intake of breath he whispered: "Earth!"
She must have had her helmet phones on. She turned slowly to face him, and Carston was startled at the clear-cut radiance of her face.
"It's the Earth, yes ... it's beautiful. There's no other place on this planet where you can see it like that, and then only when the position is right. Sometimes not for months...."
Carston stepped quickly to her side. Cynthia averted her face, but not before he saw the glint of tears in her eyes, and the lengthening glimmer of one that rolled down her cheek beneath the transparent helmet.
For an instant, Carston was dumbfounded. Then a vast exultation surged within him. "I knew it!" he whispered fiercely. "Almost from the first moment I saw you, I sensed there was something artificial beneath your mask of hardness. This is it! You don't hate Earth at all, Cynthia, you've never hated it!"
"Yes," she spoke softly, her voice deepening. "I've never hated Earth. It was only father—" Abruptly she stopped, and her gaze strayed to where the blue star shone like an aquamarine ablaze. "I can't remember clearly; it's like a vague dream—but I have a dim vision of green fields and golden light, and clouds in an unreal blue sky; and trees beside a wide lake, with a crisp tang of air, different from the air here. To me, that's Earth. I was born there." Her voice faded, and as if from a great distance Carston heard her say, "Oh perhaps it's just a dream."
"No, it's not a dream," Carston whispered, standing very close to her now. "It's part of you, it belongs to you! All Earthians feel that out here, a yearning to get back. Cynthia, I've loved you from the very first ... didn't you know? Let me take you back with me, out of this madness that can only mean death for us all!" He stopped, at the sight of her upturned face, white and wan.
"I guessed. Yes, I know. I've been waiting a long time to hear you say this. And I'd go with you, Carston, but how is it possible now? My life's forfeit, you yourself said so!"
Now Carston was very sure of himself. "No, my dear," he said softly, trying to filter the triumph from his voice. "Your life's not forfeit if you help prevent the carnage and destruction that Aladdian's mad dream will bring about. She doesn't know, shecan'tknow the awful power of Earth's fleet. Luhor's vaunted super-cruisers will be so many leaves scattered in the void. This allotropic metal on which his hope of invincibility is based, can be neutralized and destroyed!"
"But how? What can we do?" Cynthia's voice held a note of despair, as her hand unconsciously went out to his.
"We can give Earth the location of Luhor's asteroid, and the secret of Vulcan!" He said it so softly, so insinuatingly that it was little more than a thought. "I can promise you an absolute pardon, my dear—more! I can promise you honor for aiding Earth. The Council knows how to reward, as it knows how to punish."
"But Aladdian and Mark? Would it not mean death, or worse, for them both?" She shuddered, as a vision of the Swamp came before her eyes. "I could never condemn them to that," she thought aloud.
"With my influence, I can get amnesty for them—leniency at least," Carston said with the glibness of one to whom nothing mattered but the ultimate task that must be accomplished at all costs. "All Earth wants is to avoid another war. If we make it possible for Earth's fleet to capture Luhor and neutralize the asteroid, I'm certain the Council will pardon Aladdian and Mark." He pressed her hand confidently in both of his.
She seemed to hesitate, but Carston knew she had already made up her mind. "If you're sure you can obtain the pardon—and stop this senseless war—yes—yes, my dear, I'll give the Earth Council any information you wish—"
Her voice dwindled and stopped as Carston took her into his arms. He, himself, was white and trembling with the reaction of having accomplished his task. Over her shoulder he could see the twinkling blue dot of Earth. He smiled, and it was a very smug smile. His breath was long and trembling, but his intense emotion at the moment wasnotakin to love.
X
"Soon, now."
Carston's murmur echoed eerily against the shrill hum of the atomomotors in the upper scales. The phantasmal glow of the selector screens suffused the chamber. Selenic cells poured additional power into the trans-telector beam as Cynthia's fingers trembled over the shining dials. Carston, standing beside her, was white-faced and tense.
Slowly a shifting blur materialized on the huge televise of the ethero-magnum. It focused, and the thin-lipped, ascetic features of the Earth Coordinator materialized in the immense Council room of Earth. The Council in full session surrounded him. All were intent on their receiving screens, on which Carston and Cynthia were reflected.
Cynthia stepped nervously aside, and Carston came forward. He bowed low. Then his voice, hoarse with uncontrollable elation, rose in greeting.
"Your Beneficence, and Elders of the Council! I am speaking fromVulcan, the long-sought base of Captain George Marnik, where I have been a prisoner for many months! But no longer. This," he gestured hesitantly, "is Cynthia, George Marnik's daughter, for whom I beseech the Coordinator's and the Council's clemency for the service she is about to do."
Then in slow and measured words Carston told in detail all that had happened, beginning with his own release from the Swamp by Cynthia, relating Luhor's murder of Marnik, and finally telling of the asteroid where Luhor's space cruisers were being assembled, and of the new allotropic metal being mined on Vulcan. Then he motioned for Cynthia to come forward.
The Coordinator had listened in silence, his grim face impassive. Every eye in the Council room was unwaveringly on the screen, and the silence lay heavy between two distant worlds. Slowly, Cynthia walked toward the ethero-magnum sender, a sheaf of note paper in her hand. She smiled wanly, but confidently at Carston. Then in a colorless voice she read her mathematical figures giving the position of the asteroid in space, and the formula for the shortest approach from Vulcan, as the key for computation of the trajectory from Earth. Without animation, she gave the formula for the allotropic metal process, and the secret of the entrance to Vulcan.
Then she fell silent. As if she didn't know what to do, she turned to Carston and caught for a fleeting instant the smug smile of triumph on his lips; but before she could comprehend its meaning, it was gone.
"Will ... will I be pardoned?" Cynthia questioned aloud, more to Carston than to the Coordinator on the screen.
But the silence in the Council room of Earth persisted, as busy mathematicians already were furiously computing the mathematical formulae. A thin, contemptuous smile had parted the Coordinator's lips. It was the first time Carston had ever seen him smile, and the room where he and Cynthia stood, although millions of miles distant, seemed colder suddenly as that glacial glimmer came through the screen.
Carston opened his lips to speak. "Your Beneficence," he began—
But suddenly, catapulted from the deepening darkness of the corridors, an azure-winged figure with curved hands outstretched fell like an avenging fury upon Carston's back! Dainty hands, suddenly transformed into claws, dug like spikes of steel; a supple body too ethereal for strength, now seemed made of metal as the Venusian girl attacked him with a savagery that brought every man of Earth's distant Council room to his feet!
Close on her heels Mark Denning had barely time to separate the tangled figures. Carston's face dripped blood where Aladdian's fingernails had furrowed deep. Cynthia seemed rooted to the spot. So incredibly swift had it been, that the battle was over in seconds. Aladdian's eyes were pools of fire as she faced the Council. Her streaming hair seemed to shimmer as she spat her venom into the screen.
"Very well, send your space fleet, you clumsy fools! Let your madness condemn the planets to a bath of blood! Yes, you have the formula for the allotropic metal—but what good is it to you without a source of supply? You have the location of the asteroid—but do you suppose your fleet can stand against such a mobile fortress as Luhor will make it? But it's a waste of words, I know I can never convince you. Only death and destruction can. But this I do tell you! Never,never againwill you enslave Venus! Never again will you imprison me in that inhuman Swamp, and never will you land on Vulcan! For I have one weapon left, one which only we of Venus possess. We have used it once on Mars, once in our history only, for we are not warlike. But before Luhor and the Martian hordes overrun my planet andyoursas he certainly can, I will use this weapon, Earthian!"
On the screen, the Coordinator's face was livid. "Arrest her," he said across the immense distance to Carston. "In the name of the Supreme Council of the Tri-Planetary Federation, arrest her! Her life's forfeit!"
But Carston stood motionless, pale as death, suddenly confronted by the grim figure of Mark who gripped an electro-pistol in his hand.
At this veritable moment, out of the void, cutting in on the beam like the disembodied cachination of some strange creature, wave upon wave of gigantic mirth poured on two worlds! And as every participant of this drama stood tense, watching their screens, there slowly emerged the half-breed figure of Luhor, his gargantuan laughter still roaring in uncontrollable paroxysms.
"So that's it!" Luhor managed to choke between spasms. "What entertainment you have provided me with—and what information! And to think, Aladdian, that I'd planned to make you my empress. Why, my little dove has claws!" he exclaimed admiringly. His immense, ugly bulk dominated the entire screen, as his bellowing laughter began again.
The Earth Coordinator, almost beside himself, threw a master switch; the televise screens of two worlds flickered and went blank, the pulsing whine of the atomomotors was like a dirge.
Cynthia passed a trembling hand across her eyes, and her gaze wavered before Aladdian's accusing stare. She glanced briefly at Carston with a slowly dawning wonderment, as if an awareness of his aims had begun to awaken within her.
"I—I'm afraid I've made a mess of things," she said in a slow, deep voice. "Ever since father's death, I seem to have lost my grip. I'm so sorry, Aladdian, I thought it was for the best; Carston assured me we'd be pardoned...." Her voice trailed off as she turned her face away from them all.
"I should burn you!" Mark Denning said to Carston in a cold, tight voice, and Carston went white. "You've managed to wreck our plans about as completely as possible. If the Earth blasts Luhor out of space, we face surrender or slow starvation. If Luhor wins, he can starve us out or blast his way in here with his allotropic cruisers, now that he's forewarned by you. Either way we lose—but I guarantee you, Carston,youwon't come out of this easily!" Each word was like ice, and Aladdian nodded slowly at Mark's words, a strange light in her brilliant eyes.
"We haven't lost yet, Mark." With a swift motion she crossed to the ethero-magnum again, and turned it on. "Remember, I have still a weapon. My people are behind me."
"But Venus doesn't have a fleet! Earth has seen to that."
"Wait." Her unerring precision brought the screen to life in a burst of light. A scene took place, alien, exotic—the imperial palace on Venus. A great crowd stood before it in silence, extending into the distance, as if the park-like expanse had become a place of pilgrimage. In eternal vigil all faced the televise screen that rose from the floor level to the top of the palace. Fantastic blue-green mountains filled the background, dwarfing the small fragile figure that materialized on the receiving screen.
"My people, I speak to you for the third, perhaps for the last time—" There was a world of yearning in the cello-like voice as Aladdian opened her arms toward them. A cyclonic roar burst forth in tribute and greeting, but quickly died down as they awaited her message.
"When I last spoke, I told you not to act without word from me. I hoped I would never have to give that word, but now I fear I must. The hour is almost here. What I will ask of you, is the supreme sacrifice. You know what that means. I, too, am prepared to make it. There is no other way. Many will die, but only that the others may avoid an even worse slavery than they now endure, and that we may attain our rightful inheritance, an equal place in the Planetary Federation." The voice rose like a stream of music, and tears were in Aladdian's eyes. "The choice is yours, my people!"
When the thunderous response had died down in waves of overpowering sound, Aladdian stood in silence for several moments; in silence, too, the Venusian multitude remained with upturned faces. Mark had an eerie feeling that aPlanetwas in tune with the fragile, winged figure.
When the connection had been broken, and once more the laboratory had reverted to semi-gloom, Mark turned to Carston and removed his weapons from him. "I can't take any chances with you now," he said coldly, "after what you've done. You wanted to become a hero in the eyes of the Earth Council. Well, from now on you'll dance to my tune."
"But not for long!" Carston sneered openly, recovering his poise and confidence. "The game's up, Denning; you're a renegade to Earth and shall be treated as such. It'll be child's play for Earth's fleet to burn Luhor and his asteroid to a crisp. After that—" He stopped and grinned contemptuously.
"After that, we'll be taken care of?" It was Aladdian who spoke, and her voice was soft like dark molten gold. "Careful, Mark," she interposed quickly, placing her hand on Mark's arm as his grip tightened on the electro.
"Idon't deserve any lenience," Cynthia said dully. "I've been a fool."
Aladdian gazed at the Earth-girl with a universe of pity in her eyes, and a great understanding. "No, my dear," she said softly, "not a fool. Only a girl in love."
"But you!" she lashed at Carston. "You shall reap the whirlwind; and I assure you, a Venusian whirlwind is beyond your ken!"
XI
"No sign of the asteroid!" Mark Denning's voice was harsh as he addressed the restless group of men milling in front of the laboratory. "We've picked up Earth's fleet, that is all; it's now proceeding beyond the orbit of Mars. Come in and watch if you wish, but it may be hours yet."
The clang and clamor of the furnaces had long ago ceased, as Vulcan awaited the outcome of the space struggle that would mean so much to them all. Since Carston's betrayal had become known, the men had discussed the situation from every angle. Paradoxically they hoped for Luhor's victory, so thattheycould deal with the Martian half-breed. At the very worst, death was better than Paradim, which surely awaited them again if Earth won in this crisis.
As Earth's fleet in awesome array, advanced toward the asteroid's position which Cynthia had given, Aladdian kept a ceaseless vigil at the televise. In far off N'Vaarl, the palace grounds were a sea of upturned Venusian faces intent upon their screen. Dar Vaajo sat brooding on his barbaric throne on Mars, his craggy face dark with passion, thinking of the upstart Luhor who had wrecked his plans. Within the austere Council chamber of Earth, the Coordinator paced to and fro before the screen, while the awed Council didn't dare to stir. It hadn't been hard for the ethero-screens of each world to pick out the flaming majesty of Earth's fleet, and they had followed its progress for hours. The meteoric speed seemed a snail's pace, across the respective televise panels.
"Look!" Aladdian cried, spilling the cup of hot concentrate Cynthia had brought to her.
With electrifying suddenness, the scene in the panel had leaped to vivid life. Concentric whorls of green, disintegrating light flashed from all units of Earth's fleet simultaneously, merging into a single appalling cloud that preceded the fleet itself. To the watchers, the spread of the light seemed slow, but it must have encompassed thousands of miles.
"But why?" Aladdian breathed, even as she twisted the dials trying to center the scene more perfectly. "They're not within hours of the asteroid belt, and they will only give their position away to Luhor!"
Carston, Mark and the others had come crowding into the room to watch the scene. Carston whispered, exultantly, "That green light is radio-active disintegrating energy! It merges with whatever it touches, unbalancing the atomic structure of metal. Wait'll they envelop Luhor's asteroid in that!"
"Yes, I know it well," Aladdian murmured. "They used it in the long war against Venus. But there is a neutralizing force now, which even Earth does not know. George Marnik developed it, right here on Vulcan Base."
Carston's lips curled, but he said nothing. The sight of Earth's mighty armada sweeping forward on its mission had instilled him with a swaggering confidence. They continued to watch the scene in silence, even as the Earth Council and the people of Venus and Dar Vaajo on Mars were watching.
Still the Fleet swept forward. Minutes passed. The greenish half-circle of light preceded it, beating back the darkness, expanding unimaginable distances as though reaching out greedy hands.
Then suddenly Aladdian's words came true.
From a point in space far in advance of the Fleet, a tiny white beam of light became visible. It reached out like a slashing saber, swiftly expanding and closing the gap of darkness. It came from the asteroid itself, now revealed to the watchers for the first time—merely a tiny dark mass that seemed to move forward with infinite caution against the Fleet.
"There it is!" Mark breathed. "Luhor's carried his plan through! He's made a rogue asteroid of it, moved it clear out of the belt—"
Words ceased, as they watched the preliminary maneuvers. The asteroid's slashing saber of white touched the disintegrating power of the green. But it was the green that disintegrated! Slowly, almost carressingly, the pale beam moved across the advancing blanket of light. Where it touched, the green dissolved magically as though it had never been.
"That's what I meant. The etheric inertia ray!" Aladdian's murmur was tinged with exultation, as she sensed Carston standing beside her taut with surprise.
Still the Earth Fleet moved forward in battle formation, in staggered horizontal tiers. Impelled by the terrific momentum, it depended upon maneuverability to escape the impending danger. But, inexorably, the asteroid moved forward also, as if hungry to meet its enemy. Limned behind its own ghastly light, it was revealed as a leisurely rotating mass of rock and mineral, with jagged pinnacles reaching out and deep black gullies agape.
A blinding lance of electric blue lashed from Earth's Flagship, like a probing finger searching for a weak point. It stabbed Luhor's white ray and ended in a corruscating upheaval of incandescent light. The asteroid was very close now; it seemed as if nothing could prevent that sidereal mass, some ten miles in diameter, from plowing through the tiers of Earth Spacers.
But in that veritable moment when disaster seemed certain, Earth's massed fleet executed one of the most spectacular feats of navigation the Universe had ever witnessed. The units literallybroke apartand moved outward into a perfect cone-like formation, with the base, or open end, toward the asteroid. Again the green radiance, from all sides now, went out to envelop the asteroid in a glaucous sheath, as the dark mass drifted into the trap.
"This is it!" Carston gloated hoarsely. "Now watch your asteroid crumble!" The others said nothing. All were tense, as the tiny ten-mile world entered the open end of the cone to what seemed certain destruction. Now the white etheric inertia ray lashed out savagely again, sweeping in swift arcs, but failed to dispel the concentrated waves of green fire.
Then from the surface of the dark world, Luhor's own space fleet arose—six cruisers only, dwarfed in size by some of Earth's larger ships. With blinding speed, the six allotropic cruisers headed for the closing jaws of the trap.
The Earth Commander was not prepared for such acceleration. It was unbelievable. He had little time to think, as Luhor's cruisers blasted with the raking fire of electro-cannon at close range. Three Earth ships went hurtling end over end through the void, ripped from stern to bow. Impervious to the wild fire of Earth's Fleet, the allotropic cruisers plowed on. Two Earth cruisers at the jaws of the trap were unable to maneuver in time. Luhor's ships in a straight line hit them head-on, plowed through them and out again, leaving behind a tangled wreck of twisted girders and scattered debris.
Luhor's six ships were out of the trap now, and they wheeled in a mighty arc, hung chain-poised as though to watch.
Behind, the now glowing asteroid erupted the real destruction. This had been Luhor's plan from the first. The balance of men taken from Paradim Swamp, left on the bleak little world to fight for their lives, now released hidden rocket tubes that blasted in perfectly spaced rotation. The rocky world began to spin, as it plunged ponderously forward. Bank upon bank of electro-cannon lashed out like uncurled blue lightning. Atomite bombs burst among Earth's fleet which surrounded this deadly pinwheel. In less than a minute Earth's vast armada was completely disorganized, space became a shambles of ripped metal plates, twisted rocket tubes and blasted hulls.
Like a livid, craggy corner of hell running rampant, the rogue asteroid spun faster and faster, spewing annihilation. But this was its death throes. The concentrated disintegrating glow had taken effect, and could not now be stopped. The craggy world began to crumble in great masses of rock and metal like a leprous organism. The few remaining units of the Earthian fleet tried desperately to escape the disintegrating lethal mass—but behind them now, at a safe distance from it all, Luhor's ships barred the way. Pitilessly his electro-cannon raked them, impervious to their erratic salvos. His Flagship with its impossible speed darted among them like a cosmic scimitar, until barely half a dozen of Earth's former armada were able to flee in scattered disarray.
Half a dozen, out of more than a hundred. Contemptuously, Luhor did not even deign to pursue.
Where an immense battle fleet and a dwarf world had battled for supremacy in space, now only shattered metal fragments and a disintegrated rain of mineral and rock remained veiled by cosmic darkness.
XII
It had been too much and too sudden for speech. Aladdian was on her feet now, even she was still gripped by the awe of the vast debacle. Mark watched Ernest Carston stumble dazedly from the Laboratory room, the appalling horror in his eyes betraying how intimately Earth's tragedy was his. He'd sent them out there to conquer, and they had remained to die. No one spoke. The crowding men who'd hoped for a victory by Luhor, even turned away before the magnitude of his power.
The laboratory on Vulcan reflected in miniature the shocked silence of four worlds. They'd seen the mightiest armada of all time reduced to nothing in a space of minutes.
Aladdian was the first to act. With the same beam, through which they'd watched the holocaust, she contacted Earth. She tuned the Council chamber where gray faces looked to the Coordinator in bewilderment and fear. But the Coordinator, stricken to the depths of his narrow soul, was incapable of speech. In the oppressive silence Aladdian's winged figure materialized on the screen.
"I greet you, Earthians, for the last time." Her molten voice had overtones of sadness. "You have seen your mighty fleet destroyed. Earth is defenseless. Luhor is on his way to Earth."
"How—how do you know?" The Coordinator was moved to speech now, galvanized into life by a more immediate fear!
"How? Because I am right now in telepathic contact with Luhor's mind."
"We shall fight to the end!"
"Yes, I expected that of you. You would condemn Earth to the same fate as your Fleet. Awaken, Earthmen! No weapon that you have can destroy allotropic metal. You have seen Luhor's ships slice through your vessels as if they were paper. You're at his mercy now."
Aladdian allowed her words to sink while she widened the beam to include Mars and Venus as well as Earth, that her voice might carry to the entire Federation.
"I am not speaking to you only, now, but to three worlds whose fate depends on your decision. Agree to what I ask, and the danger from Luhor will be eliminated."
"What do you ask?" The Coordinator's voice came through as a mere whisper.
"Three things only. Absolute liberation of Venus and Mars, which means equal representation at the Tri-Planetary Federation Council. Complete abolishment of the inhuman Swamp of Paradim. And Venus to retain Vulcan with its allotropic metal as a measure of final safety. Agree to these points before the assembled peoples of the inhabited planets who are listening now, and Luhor shall never reach Earth."
On Mars and Earth and Venus her winged figures were reflected, while her voice cadenced in the ears of untold millions.
"First," came the Coordinator's voice, "how areyouto prevent that fiend Luhor from pursuing his course? And second, what guarantees will we have that Venus will not build more of the allotropic cruisers to attack?" Although white and shaken, the Coordinator could still snarl.
"I will answer your second question first. As you well know, Venus has never in all her history resorted to war. Rather than kill," her voice became bitter, "we submitted to Earth's cruel domination. We saw the inhuman Prison Swamp spring into being, for greed of the Josmian pearls; death and persecution for the sake of power. I even personally suffered this!" She held up her wings whose tendons had been cut. "Yet despite it all, history does not record murder by Venusians.That, Earthian, is your guarantee that we shall keep the peace. As to Luhor, I and I alone can stop him now. This is an offered chance you may take or leave. Remember, Luhor's fleet has ten times the speed of Earth's fastest vessel, and will be there sooner than you suppose. Think fast, Earthian!"
"Think also," Mark interposed in a voice of steel, "that here on Vulcan we have the allotropic metal, the means to work it, and the men to build our own cruisers if we so desire!"
"I accept," the Coordinator said sullenly. Despite his fear and helpless rage, he could only envisage defeat and destruction should Luhor arrive at Earth. As for Aladdian on Vulcan stopping the mad half-breed, he did not see how it was possible; but he had nothing further to lose by agreeing. With a gesture, he ordered the Council to draw up a pact.
Four worlds watched the signatures grow one by one. Then, and not until then, did Aladdian play her last card as she brought Venus into focus.
"NOW!"
The single word was the last she uttered as she opened her arms. Her people were ready. They knew the sacrifice.
Millions of miles away an entirePlanet, as if it had been a single cosmic mind, concentrated on Luhor's fleet. A mighty stream of thought flowed out, vast but intangible. Wave upon wave, directed by Aladdian, the accumulated thought-vibrations beat ceaselessly upon the minds of Luhor and his men. And on Venus, slowly, here and there a winged figure fell and lay still, its mind sapped by the prodigious effort that knew no bounds. But the knowledge that Aladdian, their Princess, who directed the combined flow, was under an infinitely greater mental strain than any of them individually, gave them added inspiration.
Aladdian had long since made all the others, even Mark, leave the Laboratory. She maintained her vigil and efforts alone. On her magnum screen, which had shifted to cosmic space, the six invulnerable vessels continued their purposeful route toward Earth. Serenely they sped.
But suddenly, with an odd twist, one of the Spacers plunged headlong without warning into a sister ship. Both exploded into a cataract of flame. Another wavered, wheeled, then plunged toward outer space at vertiginous speed, to disappear in a dwindling dot of silver. Of the remaining three, one began to fire broadsides against the others, then rotated over and over out of control, while air-locks opened and figures leaped out to instantaneous death in the frigidity of space. It was a scene of silent horror.
But while scores died in space, hundreds died on Venus at the magnitude of the effort. Still the Venusian populace of millions concentrated in purposeful silence.
A sense of madness unleashed stole into the laboratory room where Aladdian stood alone, motionless and white-faced. She scarcely breathed. Her blue eyes were dilated. On the screen now only one cruiser remained. Not until then did Aladdian move, her hand reaching out automatically to the dials. A second later the interior of Luhor's cruiser lay revealed.
The huge half-breed had held out to the last. He'd realized what was happening, knew that the thought-power of an entire telepathic nation was reaching out across vast distances of space, the ghastly vibration of madness battering against the brains of his men. Now even Luhor began to succumb, his brutal face contorted by spasms of demoniac evil. His crew of men around him were already insane. A few sobbed monotonously on their knees, rocking from side to side. Others were already dead. One crewman was absorbed in daintily flaying another with a bright, keen penknife, while the rest were systematically destroying the ship and each other.
In the midst of the scene, Luhor's face went suddenly grey and blank. He drew his electro-pistol and like a man possessed, used it methodically about him until only he remained alive. It was then that Aladdian used her last remaining strength, directing Luhor like an automaton to the controls, where he remained frozen. The vessel heeled in space and changed course, heading away from Earth now, speeding directly sunward toward Vulcan Base.
Within the laboratory room, Aladdian swayed, her face whiter than death; she grasped at the instrument panel for support, but her fingers closed on air, as she crumpled to the floor.
XIII
She was barely conscious of Mark and Cynthia and Carston seconds later, bursting into the room. And of Mark's face mirroring his anxiety as he hurried to her.